Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

Join me Sunday September 14th at 7pm (CST) for a live makeup tutorial! You will learn how to take your everyday daytime makeup & transition it into a sultry night time look with just a couple of added products.

This class will be 90 minutes long & at the end there will be a Q&A portion where I will answer your questions live on air. Grab your notebook, a glass of wine & come and enjoy the fun from the comfort of your own home.

The fee for this class is “Donate What You Can,” meaning donate a minimum of .5 & you can join the fun. Click HERE to register for the class, there might even be a few prizes!

Personally I don’t like my highlight to be really light so I don’t use super light highlighting products. I prefer to use a much darker shade to contour to still give the appearance of being contoured & highlighted.

Today on BBB, I will be sharing with each of you how to get that perfect powder color so that you can set your highlighted areas without being to yellow or to white.

As we all know, contouring & highlighting is one of the most popular makeup trends on the planet right now & I don’t think that it is going away anytime soon. When done correctly, it is so beautiful & it can really add depth and dimension to the face. Your lighter color (highlight) will bring certain areas of the face forward while the darker color (contour) will push certain areas of the face back creating all sorts of makeup magic. Contouring & highlighting has the ability to give you an instant face lift without the surgery & create bone structure that you didn’t have when you woke up that morning.

Whenever you highlight with creams or liquids it is imperative that you set it with a powder. Make sure that your powder is not to light, setting powder that is to light looks unnatural. I have seen a lot of people over that past few years using Ben Nye’s Banana Powder to set their highlight color. Banana Powder can be quite beautiful but only on a certain skin tone. If not used correctly or on the proper skin tone, it can look too yellow. Another issue that I have observed are the highlighted areas appearing too white (translucent powders). When you have a deeper skin tone you should try to stay away from white based powders, even if they say translucent. On deep skin, a white translucent powder can make the skin appear ashy if too much is used.

In order to avoid any of these highlighting faux pas, try making a custom powder. You can do this by mixing a loose powder that matches your skin tone with a translucent (white) powder. Mixing the white with your skin tone color will lighten the powder making it a perfect match to set your highlight. Personally I combine my skin tone powder with translucent powder & a little bit of Banana Powder. I like Banana powder because I have more of a olive/yellow undertone to my skin so when I add the banana powder to my mix it gives it a hint of yellow which matches the undertones in my skin perfectly.

Now I know that you are asking how much of each you should mix but that really depends on you. If you want your powder to be lighter, mix more white, for more of a golden color add more Banana Powder etc. I recommend playing around with your powders & mixing different ratios to see what you come up with. Be sure that when you are playing you aren’t using a lot of product, you don’t want to throw away perfectly good powder. Rule of thumb…a little goes a long way.

Be sure to leave me a comment & let me know how it works if you try out this tip. Good luck guys & I will talk to you soon!

Do or Don’t? Unless you are filming a workout video or reality TV show, I think that you should just skip the whole “Makeup in the Gym” look & be all NAT-U-RAL! In my opinion, I think it is totally unnecessary & a nuance to wear a full face of makeup in the gym. Let’s face it… if you are really “GETTIN’ DOWN” in the gym, your makeup would be a hot mess once your workout is over. I say skip the powder & foundation & tough it out for an hour or with your bare beautiful face. Trust me, if other people are in the gym working out as hard as you are (or should be) they are not paying attention to your blush color. The only thing that you should keep in your gym bag are some facial cleansing cloths. These are great for removing the sweat, dirt & oil that built up during that glorious workout. Now for those of you who want a little product while “gyming” it up here are a few little tips. Throw on a little waterproof mascara, lip balm & at max a tinted moisturizer. The mascara will lift the eye and since it is waterproof it won’t smudge with all that sweat, your lip balm will help to hydrate the lips throughout your workout & your tinted moisturizer will add a little color to the face. No need for blush, your cheeks will be pink soon enough! When you work out your body releases heat causing you to sweat, when you sweat, your pores are open & if you have on makeup guess where it’s going? You guessed it, right into those pores which will cause black heads, white heads & other unwanted acne issues. Are you still protesting against my “NO MAKEUP AT THE GYM” mantra? Well here is a solution for those of you who just can’t imagine going bare face. Be sure that immediately after your workout you head home & remove all of your makeup with a makeup remover wipe or Makeup Eraser (click the link to find out more). Don’t run any errands or make that long-awaited SB run just yet, go straight home & get it off (or take your skin care to the gym). This is super important because you don’t want your makeup settling deeper & deeper into your pores, the deeper it settles the harder to get out. Once you have gotten everything off, go ahead & start your normal cleansing routine (cleanse, exfoliate, tone & moisturize), this will help to prevent any yucky bacteria from forming which can be the cause those pesky blemishes. Well I hope this helped some of you…leave me a comment below & let me know what you think. Remember, “Beauty is Power; and a Smile is it’s Sword!” Love, Britt

With SUMMER coming to a close & Fall just around the corner, your makeup routine might be changing, but don’t think that you have to relinquish that summer #glow that you spent all summer perfecting.

EXFOLIATE. First things first, in order to have healthy “looking skin” you must have healthy skin. Be sure that you are exfoliating regularly, at least 4-5 times per week. Exfoliating eliminates dry/flaky skin & cleans deep down into your pores to remove excess dirt & oils (which cause acne breakouts) that you don’t reach when hand washing. I like to use my Clarisonic to get a deep clean, especially after I remove my makeup.

MOISTURIZE. Next, make sure that you are moisturizing DAILY (Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Oil-Free Gel Cream). You may use other products like serums & eye creams before your moisturizer but at minimum, you need to moisturize (even if you struggle with oily skin). Be sure to find a moisturizer that is going to work with your skin type. Gently massage & press your moisturizer into the skin & don’t forget your neck. Moisturizing leaves the skin hydrated & supple, this will help promote that natural glow.

ILLUMINATE & COVER. You are now ready for your foundation (Urban Decay’s Naked Skin #8.0). Choose a foundation that will set to a natural finish & preferably one that is medium coverage (I will explain why medium in just a min) . Try to stay away from foundations that dry to a matte finish, a foundation that is matte will eliminate the dewiness that we are aiming for. When I want a healthy natural glow but I still want coverage, I like to use an illuminator (MAC’s Strobe Liquid) that is thin in texture & I mix it right into the foundation. You could apply this directly to the skin after your moisturizer, but mixing will give the appearance that your glow is coming from within & not like you added it. Now, back to why I said a medium coverage foundation. When you mix your illumniator into the foundation it will immediately sheer down the foundation. If you were to use a foundation that was sheer in coverage, when you add your illuminator to the foundation & apply it to the skin there will be a minimum amount of coverage. If that is the look that you are going for then you are right on track, but I like to have just a little coverage when wearing foundation.

HIGHLIGHT. Now that you have gone through & taken care of the skin, don’t forget to brighten underneath those eyes (YSL’s Touche ‘Eclat Radiant Touch in #4). Brightening the under eye area will give you the appearance that you are well rested & make your eyes appear as though they have been lifted. Don’t be afraid to take you under eye highlighter & pull it to the upper plains of the cheek bones. This will lift the cheek bone & help it to stand out. Make sure that your under eye highlighter is not to light. Remember, you are going for a “natural” glow & sometimes if your under eye highlight is to light it can appear unrealistic.

POWDER. Finish off your foundation & under eye highlight with a loose sheer powder. Gently press the powder into the skin & under the eye. Be sure not to use heavy powders or full coverage powders. You want you skin to be the focus!

BRONZE. Lastly, find a bronzer that matches your skin tone (MAC’s Mineralized Skin Finish in Give Me Sun). If you have fair skin use a sheer rose/peach color bronzer. For ladies with olive skin tones try using sheer copper/earth tone colors. Ladies with deeper skin, use colors that are warm & rich, with subtle shimmer. When applying your bronzer, be sure to apply to the perimeter of the face (top & sides of the forehead, the hollows of your cheeks, jawline & neck) & not all over. Adding the bronzer to the perimeter of the face will create that beautiful sun-kissed glow.

Although summer is coming to a close, it doesn’t mean that your makeup can’t look like you are still living in the middle of June!